


my mother the war

by sapoeysap



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, References to Depression, References to Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 11:25:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18872233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapoeysap/pseuds/sapoeysap
Summary: They're fighting another Great War, even bigger and more convoluted than the last. It's expectation that every able-bodied man will sign up. The thing is, Patrick doesn't even believe in War in the first place.





	my mother the war

**Author's Note:**

> I know naught about WW2 in America, all I have learnt is from films, and a bunch of Wikipedia pages. I also know naught about American slang or rules really. Britain teaches a very sanitized version of WW2. The village I talk about, is a real place I have visited and exactly how you imagine a British ghost town by the seaside to be.  
> This fic obviously is not meant to romanticise war, people died and war is bad, i touch upon this here. I stress that this is obviously fictional; please remember to be respectful of brian and pat and not leave weird comments on there posts and stuff, idk what its like in this fandom but y’all stay chill.  
> Also im new here, this is my first fic for this fandom. I’ve only seen unravelled and gill and gilbert and don’t watch other polygon videos so I avoided talking about the others.  
> This entire thing was written while I listened to 80s new wave (shout out to nick hayward u got some bangers) yet some of the characterisation still leans towards my own tendencies, write what you know kiddos. enjoy!
> 
> (heed the warnings some period typical homophobia and light mentions of abuse happen)
> 
> EDIT: 19.05, i fixed (i hope) all of the grammar errors and missing sentences, my laptop crashed a couple of times in the writing process and i don't have a beta!

* * *

  _Mars, the Bringer of War_

* * *

 

 

Abstractly, Pat knows that there is a war going on and that war is bad. Foolishly he thinks it makes no difference to him, this big great war. And then it does. The big great war gets a little too dicey and its in the big great American way to ship out all its able-bodied men to the bunkers and front lines. The big great American way to intervene just a little bit more than it’s already doing.

Pat was an oddity, the man the town whispered about. Over thirty, unmarried and unbothered by the girls the town tried to throw his way. (Though rumour has it, in the depths of the gossip, that one girl slipped through, until her family had left town) ‘A poet’, ‘an artist’ were the polite whispers, ‘queer’ said some, and the ones who never speculated, were the ones that never looked Pat in the eye.

The truth, that remained to Pat and Pat only, was that when you’re beaten by your father’s belt one too many times and consequently your mother refuses to look you in the eye. You turn out kind of funny, broken and a shell of what you once where, or once could have been. Turn into something Unlovable.

Hell, if he’s broken already, what more can the war do.

* * *

There's a boot camp, stationed in the middle of the state. One day drive if he hitches a ride. Two if he ends up walking half-way. It's just him, a beat-up old notebook, a rosary close to falling apart and a locket when he makes it (two and a half days later) to the camp.

Training's fine, no one knows him here, no word of mouth precedes him, no trepidation from the other soldiers. Some of them seem so so young, baby faced and wide-eyed. Pat can't let his shaving routine let up, for fear someone might see the patch of white on his chin and know, just how old and useless he is. Training ambles along, early morning jogs, shitty food, cold showers and learning how to shoot guns. He's not a half bad sniper, but ‘the glasses are a liability Gill, you stick to normal guns.'

It's the glasses and his stick figure that keep holding him up from being earmarked as anything but a Private, and help make him a target for the bigger (younger) boys. Pat knows he's strong, physically, but he knows it is hidden under wiry arms and a stretched-out torso. Pat knows from experience how to take a beating without crying out, but at least when it was his father, he knew what he was being beaten for. Funny how ‘Faggot' hurts less than all the things his father said, becuase at least being called faggot isn't based on any truth.

 

Running drills are harder when your ribs are bruised and breathing takes just that little bit longer. Bliss when they end and a cold shower is a laughable reward.

Of course its after one of these blissfull showers to get rid of the sweat that Pat trips over his own feet on the way out of the shower tent, falling straight into the slick mud.

‘Divine Retribution’ gets mumbled into the dirt. His limbs feel slick and heavy. It’s bullshit that this happened after his shower, the muds going to be stuck to him for days all caked up. 

‘Are you alright?’ a voice asks, and for a second Pat’s tired and weary brain thinks it’s the mud asking him. That the mud is softly touching his back.

‘I've been better'. It's an effort to get back up, but with a little help from not the mud but a human being he manages it. Not the mud but a human being is short, one of the young baby-faced comrades Pat mentally calls kid, sparkly eyes and biscuit hair all uniform trimmed, one curl escaping down the Kid’s forehead. The kid’s nametag just says Gilbert.

‘You took a hefty fall there, could have knocked out some teeth and ruin all those pretty looks’ Gilbert says all melodic.

‘Just wanted to spend some time getting to know the earth’ Pat deadpans, Gilbert rewards him with an even more melodic laugh. Pat extends his hand, still lightly caked in drying mud.

‘Patrick Gill’

‘A fellow Gill, I’m Brian David Gilbert’

‘Is the David important?'

‘Ask too many questions Patrick and there'll be trouble.' The kid says with a glint in his eye, there's a rifle hanging from his back, its strap precariously drooping off of the kid's arm. Pat notices the group of men disappearing into the distance. Probably Gilbert's Platoon.

‘I’ll see you around alright. Maybe next time you’ll be covered in less mud’

Gilbert’s set off in a jog, moving fluidly to re-join his platoon, the rifle on his arm doesn’t slip once. Pat dusts himself off and smiles.

* * *

The orders to ship out come through a few days after Pat face plants the mud. He snuck a shower in between, but it was brief and there are still tiny patches of dirt flaking off his body. Pat misses having long hair to hide behind, even if it meant more queries from the townsfolk. He's off to France in the morning, shipped out on a boat to some country he's only heard off in tall tales told in springtime, of Paris and the arts. To boost morale, there's a ‘sending off' gathering, around a bunch of campfires at the boot camp. Pat wants to spend the night hidden away, in bed trying to prepare for whatever lies ahead. He's better at the hidden routine. But there's a promise of whiskey and the sound of the radio's too loud echoing through the camp for sleep to even dream of coming. 

The evenings nice, the sun sets quick but the fires are warm. Pat leans against a pole and watches the world go by. Soldiers in groups singing songs _While you've a lucifer to light your fag smile smile smilleeeeee_ will probably echo around his head for days. And then one voice echoes crystal clear, accompanied by a harmonica, which doesn't quite work with the song choice. But the voice carries through in spite of the mild discordance. Pat scans the soldiers and finds the tiny group circling the voice. 

_How long can a guy go on dreaming,_

_if there's a chance that you care?_

_Then please say that you do_

Pat eyes lock with the singer, it’s the kid from the other day, just as the song comes to a climax,

_Say it and make my craziest dream come true_

Gilbert smiles this knowing smile, cocksure. Lets his hair and the silly curl get ruffled by his platoon. He's dressed in only a tank top and the regulation brown trousers, a few of his nails are black like they've been scribbled on with ink.

Pat hears snippets of ‘Your such-a sap Brian’, ‘Jukebox Gilbert’ and thinks to himself, that if it were anyone else, they’d be ripped to shreds, but this kid has enough charm to pull it off.

‘Thank ya fella’s, really’

Brian gets up from the crowd of men, claps the harmonica player on the back and then Pat loses sight of the kid. Probably for the better really, Pat thinks.

Not much later, he’s startled by a hand on his back and a familiar voice.

‘Hello again fellow Gill’

Patrick tries not to jump, but Brian comes out of nowhere. He's gained a jacket and flask. Pat doesn't have time to ponder if he misses the kids' untoned arms

‘Are you even old enough to drink’

‘Questions Question’s Patrick, were you a lawman in another life?’

Pat crosses his arms and shakes his head.

‘No drinking laws anymore, not that I've ever abided by the laws’

Pat came of age during the tail end of the prohibition, wears a little bit of it around his eyes. Beer drunk under piers when he still had friends and whiskey to keep warm when the snowfall was heavy. Gilbert doesn’t look like he’s old enough to even remember prohibition.

‘A humble twenty-five I am, a quarter of a century old’

Pat laughs because twenty-five is both nothing and everything, it was the last year he really has fond memories off, before the tail end of his friends had up and left town. Before her. Before his life was left to rot in ashes.

‘You in there at all Gill, or are you just a man of few words’       

‘The latter’

It's not funny but Gilbert honours him with a laugh anyway.

Pat’s continued his streak of loneliness out here in the camp. Gilbert’s the only one that’s even tried to penetrate the bubble.

‘You’re always looking so morose, but I saw that smile when you hear me sing’

‘Don’t flatter yourself Gilbert’

‘Not at all not at all, I’m humble. And that’s why you, Private Patrick Gill, should meet me behind the mess hall, at say half past the hour’

Pat's brain is stuck in military time which makes it jarring to hear time referred to in normal methods. By the time he's come out of pondering time breaks, Gilbert's gone, vanished into the cigarette smoke and cheerful laughter of the platoon.

Waiting out the time is not hard work at all, the atmospheres easy, everyone's drunk and loose-lipped, trying to ignore the beckoning of tomorrow, the edge of the unknown in foreign lands surrounded by new faces.

Someone raps him on the back and drags him into the group of drinkers, hands him a flask and lets the drink warm him up. To the point Pat barely notices the time passing, until it’s mere minutes before the kid had asked to meet him. Slipping out of the crowd is easy enough, excuses not needed because everyone’s pissed, hell it’s not like he’s going to be missed in between any of these soliders. 

The leather on his watch strap is wearing thin, threatning to slip off at any given moment. It's a tiny clockface, the only heirloom from his father, Pat pays rapt attention to the tiny arms ticking through.

He breaks into a slow jog once he’s out of sight of the others, as the time slips away, and the long hand meets the half hour.  Skids around the side of the mess hall and straight into the arms of Gilbert. 

‘You seem to have a tendency for trying to eat dirt Gill’

‘Thanks for noticing, old habits die hard and all that’

Gilbert’s hand is warm, Pat tries not to focus on the way Gilbert always seems to be touching him. It just makes him focus on the ill-fitting issue jacket the kid wears, that covers the white tank top and the fact the kid has glasses on now, not bottle lenses like the ones Pat wears. Thinner glass, like he does fine without needing them all the time. Pat envies that a little.

‘I’ll be in good old Great Britannia tomorrow Pat, nice in Blighty they say’, Gilbert puts on a stupid accent to say it.

‘And we’re behind the Mess Hall because?’

Gilbert puts on a coquettish face, bats his eyelashes twice up at Pat through the thin skinny glasses and says in a demure slightly pitched voice.

‘I needed a man to dance with, and I wanted the most handsome man at the barracks. Had my sights set on Sergeant Evans’ Gilbert giggles before continuing ‘But then I saw Private Gill and I just knew he was the man for me’

Pat’s been had but he’s not sure exactly how.

It takes a minute for him to realise, that the kid is standing their arms outstretched. Waiting.

‘Uh. There’s no music and I can’t dance’

It’s stupid, the dumbest thing he’s said in just about forever. The no music thing has never stopped him before, a summer before the fall, with a girl he’d twirl out under the stars.

‘Oh, Private Gill, wouldn’t you humble a girl just once and pretend there’s a radio in your head’

Gilbert takes his jacket off, folds it neatly and puts it down on the ground, then extends a hand out.

‘Dance with me’

So Pat loosens a button on his shirt, lets the kid put hands on his shoulders, and puts his own hands on Gilbert's hips. Forgets about the girl with the long hair and looks at the guy with ink-stained nails and foppish curls.

‘You haven't made many friends around here Patrick' Gilbert asks mid-rock. He's a good dancer, Pat has to work to keep up.

‘Not much for company and company’s not much for me kid. And I prefer Pat’

‘And I prefer Brian’ There’s a long pause, and the foolish part of Pat’s brain tells him to dip Gilb- Brian. ‘Such a shame for such a charming man to have no company’, The warmth of Brian’s hands is seeping through Pat’s trousers, Pat thinks next time he showers he might still see the imprint, he has no clue when his next shower will be, probably in France.

‘Are you scared’, he asks, mid sway. It’s the most honesty he’s ever opened up with in a long time.

‘Of course, but ever since I saw you sprawled out in the mud; I'm starting to think luck is on my side. Say, Pat Gill, what's in that locket of yours, a picture of some girl from back home I should worry about'

Pat can't say he's scared when Brian is there so open with confidence that it's going to be okay. Pat can't say he's scared when Brian is bouncing from subject to subject, splitting Pat open with questions that he hasn't had time to think about or measure up the answers too. The locket's easy though. He stops their swaying, and reaches for the locket, exposed by the loose buttons on the shirt. The silver is dull with wear, but when he opens it up the drawing of Charlie is there, perfect and immaculate. Brian's gives a sweet little coo at the drawing. 

‘A boy actually, Charlie,  and long passed’

‘I’m sorry for your loss. Did you draw this, Pat?’

Pat nods in place of words, too focused on closing the locket and tucking it safely against his chest.

 ‘Didn’t realise I was dancing with such an artist, maybe one day you can draw me. Now I think it’s time for you to spin me out’

A knot in Pat’s chest loosens, unfurls as Brian spins out and does a twee little bow.

‘You’d make for an interesting study kid’

‘I take that as the highest compliment’

A loaded silence falls between them. There just out in the open, hidden by the hulk that is the mess hall, and illuminated by far off lights. Pat hasn't felt like this in a long time, but in the silence, all he can think about is the distance between France and Britain, small but significant; and the curl that bisects Brian's forehead.

‘I had long hair once' Pat finds himself saying, as he runs his fingers absentmindedly through the curl, he's not even sure when he moved closer to the kid. ‘I was a bad Catholic boy, couldn't sit still in the pews'

‘It’s a good thing I like bad boys, and maybe, when this is all over, you can grow all that long hair back, I’d like to see it’

Pat pulls Brian against him, dips them both against the wall of the mess hall and into the shadows. Brian leans up instinctively, not quite onto tiptoes, but enough to plant a soft kiss on Pat's lips.

‘Thanks for the dance Private, turned this girl into a happy dame’

Patrick’s all kiss gooey, and Brian’s stepping out of the shadows, face illuminated by the orange glow of the world.

‘I better be going now Private; papa would hate if I’m late’

The words are pulled out of him, ‘Wait Brian.’

And Brian waits, looks at Pat with wide eyes, glistening in the dull glow.

‘Will I see you again', and Pat tries his hardest to not let his voice waver.

Brian lets all hint of the girl voice slip away, it's just Gilbert, replying ‘Patrick…. Pat, as I said, I gotta see that long hair of yours'

‘Take this, so I know you’re safe.’ And Pat fumbles in his pocket, pulls out his frayed rosary, with its rubbed down beads and half broken cross.

‘If there was a god, she’s already smiled down on me by showing me to you, and I think bad catholic boys need it more. I’ll put some luck on it though.’ And Brian leans down and plants a tender kiss on the cross.

‘Good luck Private, save a dance for next time’

Brian's gone, disappeared back before Pat even registers the tightening of the knot that's just been loosened.  It's been years since anyone's made him feel this way. Since anyone's snuck in and made him maybe think he understands what the word ‘belonging' means. That feeling sticks with him in the plane as they travel across the sea, until it seeps under and into his heart and doesn't go away. Even as below him the front lines fold out, tiny little veins bleeding out onto innocent land as they fly over.

* * *

He's in France a week when the first letter comes through. There's no family for him to mail out too, no family for him to write letters of humble survival or details on how much he loathes potatoes at this point since they make up what feels like every meal. He hasn't forgotten the way Brian makes him feel, neither has he allowed the beaten old notebook he carries to forget, felings in the form of scribbles in the corner of a page half in code and all in incorrect pronouns. But he had never expected Brian to write.

_Dear Private Patrick Gill,_

_I hope you do not find my mailing presumptuous, but I feel our friendship forged in the boot camp must be kept up. Spirit of brothers and all that. Don’t feel pressured to mail back, though I hope France is as thought._

_It has transpired that Britain is beautiful, in spite of the bombed-out parts. I must work on my accent though. They took us on a grand tour of London, and then swopped us out to a tiny village on the south coast, on the ‘Jurassic Coast’ like the dinosaurs. How exciting. I hope my bones are not left here to rot like the poor dinosaurs._

_The village is beautiful, left to the Ministry of Defence (Britain has such fancy words for there military) and split between us yanks and a few British. There’s a note on the church door, hoping we treat the village kindly. How quaint Pat. A nice spot for you to draw._

_I hope this finds you well,_

_Sincerely, Brian D. Gilbert_

_P.S I have decided our brotherhood shall be addressed as Gill and Gilbert since we share the ‘Gil'_

Patrick scribbles his actual feelings down in his notebook, rolls the letter up into a careful fold, and squeezes it into the locket. Next to Charlie, where it’s safe. He writes back a simple.

_Dear Brian D. Gilbert_

_God she watches over me._

_Patrick Gill._

He scribbles out the ‘S’ in she, but its faint, the mark still there. And hopes that Brian will understand, how Pat is a man of brevity, poor at words. But it feels rude to leave Brian without a reply, on tenterhooks out in his pretty English village.

The month's pass, as the haze of war settles into his bones, squeezing in next to the fatigue and hatred of potatoes. For every two steps forward, it feels like they take a step back. ‘Little by little now boys' says the condescending Sargent. There seems to be some romanticism of the all the American G.Is, French accents heavy upon the word Hollywood. Pat doesn't feel like a movie star in sweaty fatigues.

Really they're just there to provide reassurance and mild assistance to the French. Pat thinks in his head, how of course America would fly em all out, under the pretence of being the big heroes, but let them sit back and fall to waste in some backwater French village. That voice is cynical and only assuaged by the letters he receives. So many in fact, he sneaks an Altoids tin from the food building. Just to store the letters.

_Dear Pat,_

_We have not seen war, for which I am grateful for, seeing the harrowed villagers in the countryside. The children who have made it from the cities away from their parents, to live in big houses under wealthy country garb._

_My heart hurts for them the most, young faces without guidance, just scared they will never see their parents again._

_I have a sister, back in Baltimore, and parents I’m close too. This is the furthest and longest I’ve ever been gone. They’d be proud of me, old Jukebox Brian, for making it out this long._

_Yours, Brian._

_p.s the altoid tin is a wise idea, bet you keep it in your breast pocket so you can say it saved your life from a bullet one day. A bible of mints._

Pat tries not to dwell on the way the word yours is erased and crossed out, but it's hard not to think of the eyes of the mailmen who had to scan the letter. If they know, that Brian means ‘Yours' so literally.

He folds the letter up into the tin, lets it join the rest.

It’s the last letter for a while.

Pat tries not to think about how that makes him feel. Especially when all his short replies are returned to sender.

It’s a flip of the coin really, the way good news trickles slowly, and bad news trickles in fast. No news at all is limbo, purgatory for Pat’s soul.

It seems like the world is taunting him, pretty French girls looking for a night with a young American, twisting their curled hair. Walking into the barracks and hearing the faint strains of a song once sung over a fire, crooning through the air, accompanied by a big band and radio crackle instead of a harmonica and wood crackle.

There’s a dance, in the town hall for ‘socialisations’ sake and he doesn’t want to go. Cynical voice pipes up in his brain, knowing that the socialisations are just ways for the GIs to let off steam by fucking half of France’s young ladies. That’s not really his thing. So he doesn’t go.

He's been settled into this little cottage that he shares with three rowdy brothers, who are all soft but fierce. And all gone for the night, no doubt looking for girls to woo and bed. The cottage is partly in wine fields, separated from the rest of the village by half an acre of grape vines. This has made him a little jumpy, especially when the nightmares hit. Hard to wake up in complete isolation, in a creaky house in a country not yours. 

The kitchen is the creakiest, taps drip at weird hours, and the stove never lights properly. It's gone sunset, and Pat's thinking of an early night. He's down to one candle and doesn't want to waste anymore when he could be sleeping.

That’s when it starts. A tap tap tap, on the window, scaring him witless. It sounds soft, the third one is followed by a splat and an exclamation of ‘oops’ from outside. Some kid from the village probably breaking curfew Pat figures. 

And then a head pops up in the window frame. Who can blame Pat for jumping out of his skin? Once the shock has left him, he realises how familiar the face is, thin glasses and new curls joining the one he remembers so well.

Brian, Brian’s in France. Brian’s here, at his window. Throwing grapes instead of rocks.

He walks over to the window with trepidation, shouting ‘Why didn't you knock'. That can suffice for a hello. It's easier, to have an air of friendliness, anything could have happened in the gap when no letters were received, in the gap when Pat maybe though the kid was no more.  Brian could be here to say that he's met a pretty girl, probably British and he charmed her with his impressions of accents. Or that the ‘yours' scribbled out and worn down by how many times Pat's fingers have traced over the words, meant nothing at all, had just had the ‘sincerely' forgotten in the rush of writing a letter. Or that Brian was in France, just to spite him.

Brian is looking at him through as he slides the pane of glass up, the kid's munching on a small bunch of grapes, and Pat's heart lurches.

‘You shouldn’t eat those, they’re for wine, you’ll get sick’

‘I think that’s the most you’ve ever said to me Private Pat Gill’

‘Corporal Pat Gill now’

‘Apologies, Corporal Pat Gill, I shall stop eating the grapes if you let me in. I’m not sorry for the grape smush on the window though. A question though, are you deaf now, can’t hear the door?’

Brian hasn’t changed at all, there’s no glow of sunset and only the dim light from the candle, but Pat swears Brian’s eyes still glisten, in spite of the fact they look more tired than the memory of the kid that he recalls in weak moments. Gilbert disappears again, and by the time Pat ambles over to the front door, he opens it to Gilbert holding the empty grape stalk in between his teeth.

‘A rose mmph for my mm gentlemen’ Brian mumbles through the vine.

And Pat knows then, that he hasn’t been forgotten by Brian at all, just displaced by the war and the space between them. He takes the spit soggy vine from beneath Brian’s teeth.

‘I’ll make sure to put em’ in a vase, thanks doll’

Brian laughs, and it's nice to be rewarded by him again. It's been so long without, that clear crystal giggle.

‘Oh an American G.I in the flesh, and so handsome too. How come you weren’t at the dance solider’

Pat wants to sob at the way Brian slips into a character, partly because he struggles with the act so much, burdened by societal norms, a strand of curiousity as to why that doesn't matter to Brian. He attempts a character anyways and tries hard not to let his voice slip into sarcasm.

‘Not much for dancing, when the one I want to dance with is so far away’.

Brian steps over the threshold and into the cottage slipping himself closer to Pat.

‘How far away is your girl, soldier'

‘Last I had heard she was in this tiny village on the coast of Britain, an English rose for sure’ he tacks the last part on, but Brian’s smile makes it worth it, the way Brian breaks out of character and rewards him with answers.

‘I'm sorry, letters were hard, we were cut off by land and in the middle of nowhere. Deemed important communications and ammunition deliveries only. I didn't have time to tell you.'

Brian looks fragile, partially lit in the candle-light, sat on the rickety wooden chairs in the kitchen. Only two of his nails are ink-stained, and bruises spiderweb there way up his hand and past the sleeve. Pat fights the urge to go over and roll the sleeve up, kiss the bruises away.

‘Then we get this communication through that us Yanks must go to France, to this little village. And you'd never told me what this place was called, so I didn't know you were here until I heard some brothers crowing over how Gill never comes out to these things. Enough libations were served that it didn't take too long to get them to spill out your location'

‘Bribing my house mates with drinks. Are you a spy now, on his majesty’s secret service?’

‘Oh all my secrets spilled to the first person who pays me attention, I've shown all my cards to a handsome soldier' Brian laughs and slips back again into his own voice ‘No, afraid not, just a fool very much infatuated'

Pat gulps

‘Infatuated with what’

‘I hate to be the bearer of bad news Corporal Gill, but the girl you knew is gone, unfortunately, all that is left is me.'

‘I’ll have to make do then’

Brian slips a bruised hand delicately over one of Pat’s hands. And Pat remembers the radio.

‘I didn’t go to the dance, because I knew the dance would really be here. May I?’

Brian nods, all confidence knocked out of him, just a face hidden behind frames and curls.

The radio flicks on, Pat turns it down to the quietest volume, and together he and Brian move the table and chairs out of the way.

It’s a big band, probably the same frequence as the one they are listening to in the dance hall.

That doesn't matter here though, all that's important is the press of Brian's hands on his shoulders, the tilt of biscuit coloured hair leaning into his neck. They sway together for what feels like hours until three songs have played through and Pat's sock-clad feet ache from the hard floor and standing up too long.

‘Pat, would you let me bless your rosary again’

Pat goes to pull the rosary out of his pocket, but Brian’s hand stops him.

‘Not here, in the bedroom?', the kid's voice is just a whisper and the sparkle in his eyes is devilish. 

Pat lets Brian bless the rosary and hopes that God doesn’t mind he’s a sodomite as well as a blasphemer.

 

* * *

  _Venus, the Bringer of Peace_

* * *

 

Nothing stops war though, apart from the whispered promises of a surrendering Germany on the horizon. There’s little left to do in France, Pat’s just grateful he didn’t really see any combat. He’s heard horror stories from soldiers passing through about the things they’ve seen out in the front lines. Others in his platoon make up stories, to impress the girls mostly. Pat says nothing at all, he's just happy to make it out relatively unscathed. 

Altoid tin, in his breast pocket, weighs heavy, an extra letter added to it. A letter he had found on his pillow.

Brian had stayed the night, wrapped his arms around Pat and let them both rock to sleep bone tired and weary. Perfect, even in spite of Brian bolting up awake in the middle of the night, body wrung with sweat and eyes sad and confused. Pat hadn't pushed then, just hushed the kid and made himself the big spoon, whispered soothing words into perfect ears. He pretended it didn't hurt when he'd awoken alone to a still warm bed and a tiny note on the now vacant pillow. The shortest Brian's ever sent.

_God she has watched over us,_

_In the way you watched over me_

 

Pat had been glad at first, that the brothers had let him have the double bed in the biggest room in the cottage. They had laughed and said they were used to time spent in close quarters, and single beds weren't that bad, the catch, of course, was that the double bed had a stiff mattress. Pat liked to suffer and there was something deliciously masochistic in the constant throbbing back pain he suffered.

The pain wasn't so delicious and the double bed had felt empty and even stiffer since Brian's brief visit. Pat wonders if Brian slept in a double or a single back in England, in the deserted village on the coast. That was still all he knew because they had foolishly taken each other apart instead of asking questions. Before Pat had fallen asleep that night, wrapped safely in Brian's arms, he had studied the moles that freckled the kids arms.

Pat wonders, about the note in the tin, and what quite it meant, how tender for Brian to even compare him to God. If Brian had known, when he was gently removing himself from the bed in the pale light of dawn, the way Pat's eyes had traced over bruised skin and pale freckles mere hours ago. If Brian had known watching his own stained nails scribble the note, just how displaced it would make Patrick. How cruel it was to send him back to radio silence, a world emptied without letters, an ache in which Pat misses scribbled out _yours_ and comparisons to all things holy.

He had thought, that Brian had said he was in France permanently, or as permanently as the flux of war allows. It feels like he's been lied too, part of him hates that, the distrust. He spends time mulling over the way that Brian had laughed at the notion of being a spy. Wonders if it wasn't a lie, if maybe that's the reason for the lack of letters. The brothers had clapped him on the back when they'd stumbled in from the dance much later the next day, had asked ‘Did that kid find you, he was an inquisitive little fella. Had all the ladies around him but just wanted to find you', followed by ‘What a curious guy, his platoon was shipping out the day after, back to America I think'.

Pat tried not to dwell on that, that Brian might be back in America, might even have been discharged, because then there was the possibility that they would never find each other again. That they would become completely displaced across the great sweeps of land that make up the great forty-eight states.

* * *

 

The platoon wait out spring in France, while the radio blasts snippets of Hitler’s dead, killed himself, and then the celebrations that folllow the announcement. Not long after that, they get the recall letter, and Pat packs himself, the beat-up notebook, rosary and altoid tin up and out of France and back to America. Back to the base camp where he had first ambled up to, what feels like years ago.

He spends the time travelling back over the countries so hard faught for, by reading through the notebook, looking at tired half diary half scribbles of everything that's happened to him, in that little gap pre-shipping out and all the time spent in France. Some days the scribbles were just out of boredom. Other days they spill out his mind on to the page. Pat thinks about the tiny town, how ostracized he was and had become. The girl who had broken his heart long ago, the boy that he's letting break his heart in the now. How itchy the garb of the army is, all starch and scratch, how much he misses his long hair and the tiny house he had made his life in. It's this aching trip that takes what feels like an age but also no time at all.

Just another Platoon landing back in America because Europe has won the war but there's still a war to be won.

They make it back to the camp in one piece, having barely seen the war at all. Unscarred compared to some. But still scarred, just by the sheer horror of it all. First few weeks spent in a limbo of celebrating and murmurs of ‘damn those Japs' for not surrendering, the uneasiness of large groups of men stranded out together for no reason. And there's no foreseeable end to the limbo, Pat watches men, hollow of themselves, fight arguments between each other for no reason, watches people he knew were close friends scrap and brawl just for a discharge, just so they won't be stranded. He keeps to himself and out of the way. Goes through the motions, scanning the brawling brown fatigues for curled hair and bright eyes that he knows he will never spot.

Spring ends, and summer sets in, it's a hot August when the radio says that they, big great America, have dropped a nuclear bomb on Japan. Pat doesn't quite understand what nuclear even means. But he wants to throw up at the chipper way the radio host describes it, all the fallout. He starts to realise that this is all wrong.

So he throws a punch. In retrospect, e.g. while in the second lift he’s had to hitch back to the town he comes from, all the while clutching a wet rag to his bruised face just to ease the swelling. He thinks he probably shouldn’t have punched the biggest guy in the mess hall. But Pat figures, if your gonna go down dishonourably, might as well do it in style.

Thing is, he doesn’t regret the punch, he knew what he was signing up for two years ago. But he does regret sticking around for so long, ignoring the horrors and broken men around him. The trail of destruction left behind in the name of the United States.

Doesn't take too long for him to sit in his house and wonder if Brian will ever be able to find him again, If Brian even wants to find him again. He sits in his tiny house with its dripping roof, dust-covered sides and blackness. He sits on the edge of his bed, moth torn and dusty with lack of use. Pulls out his locket, fumbles with the clasp. There it is, preserved next to the drawing of Charlie. The first letter the kid had ever sent to him. Indulges in thoughts of French beds and blasphemy, just for a moment, and then locks them down in the mental box with a girl he can't even remember the face off. Pat Gill swears he will never entangle himself with another again.

* * *

Summer trails off, into Autumn. Umber leaves fall while Pat rebuilds his life. It starts with him fixing the leak in the roof. Fumbling into town and making amends with the townspeople he had shunned, he's not the only one who went off to War, and the effects of it are seen on everyone. Nearly as bad as the great depression he'd suffered through in his youth. Spends the money he'd got from waiting out the War in France while his country plotted to wipe out two entire cities, on a radio and a new bed. Learns to sew from an old lady who'd always favoured him, even before he was the village outcast. Some things never change though, Pat grows his hair back long, sometimes doesn't shave for a week. He stops caring about the barb's others have to say, sometimes in the bars, he will even sarcastically reply. Which wins him more acquaintance than enemies.

It's not the life Pat had ever imagined for himself, but at least he's living. At least he's waking up every morning content to take on the day. Autumn fades and the cool air gets frosty, Winter comes in with its snow fronts. Pat never feels like he can keep on top of chopping enough wood for the fire or sewing up his moth chewed jumpers. The snow makes things harder; the house is isolated from the town in any case, but there's not much company in a snow drift anyways. It's pretty though, the sight of the town blanketed by white. Pretty enough, that he finds his old sketchbook, hidden away under a flooring plank, and then under a rug. He'd been paranoid about looters for a second when he had left for boot camp but had only hidden one or two things there in the end. On a particularly memorable drinking session, with his new acquaintances, he had found out that half the town didn't realise he had gone to fight in the war and had instead thought that the house was inhabited by ghosts. Pat had found this anecdote endlessly amusing.

He sketches it now, curled up on the porch in woolen blankets and next to a tiny fire. The town all covered in the snow. At the corners he draws ethereal spirits, ghosts sneaking out, he imagines they are coming from his house to guard over the inhabitants of the town.

It’s his favourite drawing he’s done in a long time. Goes to sleep that night, and dreams about the ghosts spreading out from his house, floating down the hill, off to watch over everyone.

Pat wakes up to a black and white cat sharing his pillow spaces, practically on his head. There's a smell of coffee wafting through the house, permeating the air. Pat's first thought is that someone was just passing through to get out of the snow, and thought the house was deserted. It wouldn't be the first time that's happened.

But the cat meows and something shifts in his stomach, a knot he had nearly forgotten was tied up, loosen again. Someone's singing in the kitchen and he knows the voice, memorised it and tried to shut it away.

_In a dream, the strangest and oddest things appear,_

_And what insane and silly things we do_

_Here is what I see before me vividly and clear_

_As I recall you were in it too_

Pat doesn't recognise the song, not properly, until it starts to wind down to the end of the tune.

_Say it and make my craziest dreams come true_

And all of a sudden, he’s two years younger, watching a kid in a tank top illuminated by fire and backed by a harmonica.

The cat meows again, and Pat rolls over to pet it properly. Now he knows it's not a stranger but a friend. The warmth of its body is welcome, especially because the rest of the house feels so frigid.

There’s an extra sweater lying at the end of the bed, splashed with a few soup stains and probably in long need for a wash. Something he hasn’t thought about when living alone. No need for a strict regime of cleanliness when it's just you. Pat pulls on the sweater and lets the cat pad over him, figures the black and white hair can cover some of the stains.

Getting out of bed in the Winter is always a shock, the way the cold suddenly hits your body once free from the sheets. But the voice in the kitchen is singing a new song, like a Siren in fairy-tale's told to Pat as a kid, pulling him in. The cat winds through his sock-clad feet and darts ahead into the kitchen.

Pat hesitates at the door frame of the kitchen.

Wonders how much everything will change when he steps over the threshold.

He doesn't get long to mull over things before the cat reappears in view with Brian in tow.

Brian takes Pat's breath away. His curls are all long, but the sides of his head are shaved. The kids in one of Pat's painting jumpers, it's too long for him lengthwise, but too tight in the arms, and woollen trousers, marked by dirt stains. Best of all, his eyes still twinkle behind his thin glass frames.

‘Knew you’d be even more handsome with long hair’

Pat wants to cry and laugh at the same time.

‘Sorry, it took so long for me to see it, had to track you down first. Apparently, Corporal Pat put his fist to a meaty Private and got discharged'.

He’s planned what words he would say to Brian over again and again in weak moments, yet here when the situation comes, all he can say is,

‘Disenchanted more like’

Brian smiles, ‘Made you coffee handsome, brought a friend along as well. Hope you don’t mind’

The cat meows like it knows it is being called to.

‘What’s their name’

‘Zuko, he’s a he and I think he likes you’

Zuko meows louder and disappears off back into the kitchen, Pat’s still yet to cross the threshold. Worried that Brian might just vanish into nothingness.

‘Zuko’s hungry, I made coffee for you, last of my tin. I imagine you take it black’

 Pat finds himself taking the step over, moving closer to Brian.

‘You imagine right, besides I haven’t got any milk and I ran out of sugar months ago’

Brian snakes his arms around Pat.

‘Am I not enough sugar for you?’

Pat mumbles ‘Yes’ into Brian’s hair.

‘I’m sorry I had to leave. I promise I’ll make you breakfast every morning’ Brian takes a breath ‘If I can stay that is’

‘You could go be a star on the screen Brian, don’t waste it away here’ Pat find's himself saying, because it's the easiest thing. The thought of Brian being his forever is flipping the knot over and over in his stomach. 

‘Next life I’ll be a film star, though we could make a name as a comedy duo you know, Gill and Gilbert. We’d be the biggest thing Hollywood has ever seen’

Pat laughs, rich and deep into Brian’s hair, he extracts the kid from the hug and rests his hands onto Brian’s shoulders just to look him in the eye.

‘I’m no good at pratfalls, but I don’t mind the sound of Gill and Gilbert’

The kettle starts to whistle.

‘Kettle’s done. Coffee time’ Brian says. 

The kettle keeps up its whistle and Zuko starts to whine in annoyance at the sound, but neither of them can move from the spot.

‘Don't leave again, not for a while. Or tell me next time you're going to leave. Otherwise, you can stay forever. I can't stand waking up to an empty bed any longer'

‘You won’t have to, though I think you’ll find Zuko takes up most of the room’

Pat lets his eyes crinkle up, plants a soft kiss to Brian’s forehead.

‘You left before I could tell you I love you’

‘Funny that Pat Gill, cause the thing is, I love you too’

* * *

Brian does stick around; he makes breakfast for a week before Pat feels guilty and rises at the same time to help. Zuko's a good cat, obnoxious like Charlie, a welcome addition to the home. It hadn't quite occured to Pat exactly why the townsfolk had thought there were ghosts in the house, not until Brian comes and turns it into a home. Until Brian comes and makes winter easier by being someone to warm your bed, letting Pat hold him through the nightmares.

Pat sketches Brian, any chance he gets. Hides away the drawings out of embarrassment, thinks they are sappy and wrong. Until a night when he falls asleep with his sketchbook in hand while drawing an already asleep Brian. He wakes up to the kid rifling through the sketchbook, pleased smile on his face.

Winter ends and it turns back into Spring, a year has passed but the effects of everything still leave their mark on the both of them. Pat never pushes Brian for information, about quite what he was doing during the war. Brian starts to tell, in bits and pieces over porridge, or while Pat’s chopping wood. But Pat get's the sense it's never quite the full story, yet he knows that it takes time to heal. 

The town finds Brian a curiosity, they get some funny inquisitive questions, but Pat’s acquaintances like Brian enough that they shut down any questions. Now they are not acquaintances but Pat and Brian’s friends. Helping spread the common notion that Brian’s a distant relative of Pat’s in town for the time being. Brian woos all the ladies, with charm, and weaves a sad tale of a girl that he left behind a long time ago, a girl who had passed away. Pat laughs and thinks Brian makes it sound like a radio play, but old ladies and young lasses alike are in rapture at Brian’s tale, dabbing at faces with handkerchiefs. Nets them both some sympathy pots of food which is never a bad thing, since neither of them are spectacular cooks.

Brian grows a silly moustache and gets a job at the local cinema, doing just about every job there is to do. Comes home every night singing Disney songs, or doing impressions of Humphrey Bogart in the sitting room. They get donated a sofa by one of the old ladies who lost her son in the War. Brian kisses her on the cheek and Pat grumbles as they carry it up to the house. Zuko makes his home on the sofa, while Pat wonders out loud if the ‘old lady knew it was going to a pair of queers’, Brian does a spot-on Bugs Bunny in reply ‘What’s up Doc, do ya think the nice lady thunk we were queers.’

Hollywood starts to capitalise on the War, makes films glorifying the acts. Pat doesn't go see any of them, but Brian has to since it's his job.

That period of time is rough, the way Brian comes home from a job he loves a little more hollowed out then before. It feels reductive, like there going back in healing and not forward.

Pat had felt bad for a long time, that he was not a breadwinner for the house. And then some man had come through town and had been pointed to him, that Pat was the artist in town. He's paid handsomely for his drawings, enough that he can afford a nice Phonograph with a handful of records, for Brian.

Brian comes home that night, weary from another screening of a film that can't even say the name off. Tired from jumping out of his skin every time he heard a gunshot up on the screen. To say he brightens when Pat shows him to the Phonograph is an understatement.

Over Bing Crosby, they dance around the sitting room, and thats the night Brian tells Pat everything through tearful eyes. How little time he'd spent in the village, how he'd gone from there to London and seen the devastation first-hand. Trained on the demand of bureaucrats to be a spy, because he was handsome and American. How he'd been forced to do things and see things no man should ever see. The way he'd relied on the memory of kissing Pat behind the mess hall, just to keep himself sane. Because no amount of well-tailored suits, and money lining his pockets, would distract from the fact he saw a Country ready to annihilate other humans with just a wave of a hand. Brian describes the sheer glee on the faces of the higher-ups, as they spoke of the destruction of Japan.

Crackle as the needle comes to a stop, skips around the record. There's nothing Pat can say to make things better, so he dances both of them to the crackle. Offer's Brian an honesty that he's never been open with before, a rarity.

Pat sings.

_I had the craziest dream last night,_

_I never dreamed it could be_

_Yet there you were in love with me_

Brian holds him tighter, gives out a final sob. Zuko watches from his place curled on the couch, listening to the sounds of the crackling phonograph, as Brian and Pat, harmonise with each other while swaying around the sitting room.

**Author's Note:**

> The idea of this came from me being told to watch captain america: the winter solider (hi fia) and from the BuzzFeed Worth It fic Come To Stay by trailsofpaper, I will note that the start of this fic takes some inspiration from there but devolves into its own story from pretty quickly.  
> Also apologies for the wild catholicism references, I was off the back of an unholyverse read through and a rewatch of dogma. 
> 
> As always, please leave comments and kudos I respond to every one. I’m open to art, pod fics and prompt ideas. Find me on [tumblr](https://kelseywinslow.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/kelseywinslows)
> 
> title: ‘my mother the war, 10,000 maniacs’  
> subtitles: from The Planets by Holst  
> song extract: ‘I Had the Craziest Dream, Harry James’


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